Highlights
From small businesses to large corporations across Payroll, Wealth Tech, Government and Telco sectors, I have engineered and executed growth strategies contributing to customer success.
$6m
ARR
$1.2m
P&L
50%
increase in velocity
16
Organisations
38
Projects
10 years
leading teams/ projects
Executive MBA
Distinction
About me
Hello
ٱلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُم
After living in three different countries, I’ve accumulated a wealth of both Eastern and Western culture, through varied experiences and disciplines. These have proven to be valuable assets in driving digital transformations., for the public arena, as well as private customers. Past briefs have included designing the COVID-19 vaccination experience that rolled out across New Zealand.
Building success can be arduous. Having a product leader who has a passion for challenges ensures complex situations can be managed efficiently, producing winning outcomes. I led a successful redevelopment, of a dated digital platform, while increasing our go to market time by 50%.
I love seeing the people I work with grow and realise their full potential in the face of lean tech and challenging deadlines.
Portfolio
Vision, Strategy and Roadmap
I can distill business goals and competitive insights into an inspiring product vision. Through collaborative feature prioritisation, I ensure the designed roadmap meets both business and user values.
Product Management and Execution
I drive the entire product lifecycle, from concept, business cases, ongoing improvements to retirement. Combined with technical fluency, I navigate from the product vision to engineering execution.
Customer Experience Design
Leveraging deep expertise in data analysis, human-centered design, and visual principles, I lead teams through complex problems. With good foundations, we solve the right thing, maximising our impact.
Build effective teams
I connect the company culture to team aspirations to design how people work. Using a strengths based approach, I build the optimum structure, cultivate diverse talents and encourage coordination for success.
Financial accounting & tax
My financial acumen encompasses strong accounting skills, budgeting expertise, and tax knowledge. This trifecta ensures businesses navigate tax complexities towards sustainable financial health and compliance.
Experience
Born as a bean counter, I grew into an alchemist of growth strategy, spearheading turnaround, and scaling technology delivery.
Now - Head of Product + Board Treasurer
By day, I lead a multi-functional team, shipping payroll services in a socially ethical way. We exchange knowledge, share ideas, and build products at pace.
Over a few nights a week, I volunteer as a treasurer for a nonprofit, who prepare people for successful entry into the workforce. I also give professional development workshops at Victoria University of Wellington.
Consultant at Dentsu Merkle
Consulting for government and private businesses, I ensured that digital technology was a seamless experience for all New Zealanders. My toolkit includes human-centred design frameworks, workshop facilitation and Salesforce as tech of choice. For example, I worked on applications that helped vaccinate the local population, containing and eradicating disease outbreaks.
Craigs Investment Partners
I innovated the investor experience with realtime market data, across web and mobile apps, including using small subsets of data to create infinite cross-currency possibilities. From digital strategy right through to market release - I stayed the course until successful completion!
Vodafone (One NZ) / Telstraclear
I designed the multi-channel experience for consumer mobile that balanced great customer experience with optimum cost to serve. One product I’m most proud of is the data sharing plan for families, which is still around today.
PwC + Ernst & Young
I reviewed and advised on tax, helping customers overcome fiscal issues, by sourcing solutions that benefited their business model. I worked to structure aircraft leases for an airline, and identify tax savings for oil and gas companies.
Contact
Let’s cook up products with plenty of courage, slices of ideas and pottles of collaboration
MP
Merissa Parkinson
Phone
+ (64) 27 617 0826